72 research outputs found
Tracking Replicability As a Method of Post-Publication Open Evaluation
Recent reports have suggested that many published results are unreliable. To increase the reliability and accuracy of published papers, multiple changes have been proposed, such as changes in statistical methods. We support such reforms. However, we believe that the incentive structure of scientific publishing must change for such reforms to be successful. Under the current system, the quality of individual scientists is judged on the basis of their number of publications and citations, with journals similarly judged via numbers of citations. Neither of these measures takes into account the replicability of the published findings, as false or controversial results are often particularly widely cited. We propose tracking replications as a means of post-publication evaluation, both to help researchers identify reliable findings and to incentivize the publication of reliable results. Tracking replications requires a database linking published studies that replicate one another. As any such data- base is limited by the number of replication attempts published, we propose establishing an open-access journal dedicated to publishing replication attempts. Data quality of both the database and the affiliated journal would be ensured through a combination of crowd- sourcing and peer review. As reports in the database are aggregated, ultimately it will be possible to calculate replicability scores, which may be used alongside citation counts to evaluate the quality of work published in individual journals. In this paper, we lay out a detailed description of how this system could be implemented, including mechanisms for compiling the information, ensuring data quality, and incentivizing the research community to participate.Psycholog
Spontaneous Motor Entrainment to Music in Multiple Vocal Mimicking Species
SummaryThe human capacity for music consists of certain core phenomena, including the tendency to entrain, or align movement, to an external auditory pulse [1–3]. This ability, fundamental both for music production and for coordinated dance, has been repeatedly highlighted as uniquely human [4–11]. However, it has recently been hypothesized that entrainment evolved as a by-product of vocal mimicry, generating the strong prediction that only vocal mimicking animals may be able to entrain [12, 13]. Here we provide comparative data demonstrating the existence of two proficient vocal mimicking nonhuman animals (parrots) that entrain to music, spontaneously producing synchronized movements resembling human dance. We also provide an extensive comparative data set from a global video database systematically analyzed for evidence of entrainment in hundreds of species both capable and incapable of vocal mimicry. Despite the higher representation of vocal nonmimics in the database and comparable exposure of mimics and nonmimics to humans and music, only vocal mimics showed evidence of entrainment. We conclude that entrainment is not unique to humans and that the distribution of entrainment across species supports the hypothesis that entrainment evolved as a by-product of selection for vocal mimicry
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Music as a coevolved system for social bonding
Why do humans make music? Theories of the evolution of musicality have focused mainly on the value of music for specific adaptive contexts such as mate selection, parental care, coalition signaling, and group cohesion. Synthesizing and extending previous proposals, we argue that social bonding is an overarching function that unifies all of these theories, and that musicality enabled social bonding at larger scales than grooming and other bonding mechanisms available in ancestral primate societies. We combine cross-disciplinary evidence from archaeology, anthropology, biology, musicology, psychology, and neuroscience into a unified framework that accounts for the biological and cultural evolution of music. We argue that the evolution of musicality involves gene-culture coevolution, through which proto-musical behaviors that initially arose and spread as cultural inventions had feedback effects on biological evolution due to their impact on social bonding. We emphasize the deep links between production, perception, prediction, and social reward arising from repetition, synchronization, and harmonization of rhythms and pitches, and summarize empirical evidence for these links at the levels of brain networks, physiological mechanisms, and behaviors across cultures and across species. Finally, we address potential criticisms and make testable predictions for future research, including neurobiological bases of musicality and relationships between human music, language, animal song, and other domains. The music and social bonding (MSB) hypothesis provides the most comprehensive theory to date of the biological and cultural evolution of music
If horses entrain, don’t entirely reject vocal learning: An experience-based vocal learning hypothesis
Bregman and colleagues describe methods for testing whether horses entrain their actions to an auditory beat. If horses can entrain, does this necessarily imply that there is no causal relationship between vocal learning and entrainment? I propose an alternative way in which vocal learning may relate to entrainment – one that is consistent with entrainment in some vocal non-learning species. Due to engaging in the developmental process of vocal learning, there may be early experiences common to vocal learners, but rare in vocal non-learning species. It is possible that it is these experiences that are critical for entrainment – not vocal learning itself, nor related genes. These experiences may result in critical changes in neural development, leading to the development of cognitive mechanisms necessary for both vocal learning and entrainment. This hypothesis changes the causal story from one of genetic change to one of changes in experience, and from a focus on evolution to a focus on individual ontogeny. Thus, if horses can entrain, we should not immediately reject the idea of a relationship between vocal learning and entrainment: First, we should consider whether some unusual aspect of the horses’ experience effectively replicates the unusual experiences of vocal learning animals
The origins of dance in infancy: Characterizing the development of dance during the first two years of life (BCEM 2020)
Zoom link: https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/92330852612
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People think of others as more prosocial when they are motivated by aesthetic goals vs. instrumental goals
People expect others to take efficient paths toward goals. Inefficiency changes how we categorize actions, leading us to see actions as play (Chu & Schulz, 2020), or as movements performed for their own intrinsic value (Schachner & Carey, 2013). Here we find that performing actions for their own value (e.g., aesthetic value), versus for instrumental purposes, provides social information about others. In a pre-registered experiment (N=360), participants judged which character in a pair was more compassionate, or more selfish/manipulative. For one key pair (among distractors), both characters performed the same activity (music, painting, eating, exercising, math, being in nature), and we manipulated why: Either for its own aesthetic value, or as a means-to-an-end (instrumental value). Across all activities, aesthetically-motivated characters were judged as more compassionate and less selfish/manipulative than instrumentally-motivated characters (p’s<0.01). Aesthetically-motivated behavior may signal others’ emotionality moreso than instrumentally-motivated activities, driving inferences about prosociality
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Gesture Production and Theory of Mind:Effective Disambiguation in Communication through Gesture
People design their speech acts with their listeners in mind,accounting for their knowledge and other mental states. Is thisability specific to spoken language and co-speech gesture, ordoes it appear in pantomimic gestures as well? We ask whetheradults flexibly shift their silent gestures to emphasize relevantinformation, representing different features of the target indifferent contexts. In a two-item reference game, adultsgestured to a partner to indicate which object was the target.Item pairs differed in one of three features (size, shape,pattern). We found that adults were more likely to gesture afeature when it was relevant to distinguishing the two possiblereferents, versus when it was not. Thus, adults flexiblymodified their gestures to meet their partners’ needs,emphasizing the relevant feature. These data lay a foundationfor future work on the development of use of theory of mind ingestural communication in childhood
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